Things to See in Big Bend

Juan de Leon grave, BBNP

Ernst Tinaja, BBNP

Museum of the Big Bend, SRSU, Alpine

Cattail Falls, BBNP

Chimneys, BBNP

Gilberto Luna's Jacal, BBNP

Santa Elena Canyon, BBNP

Tuff Canyon, BBNP

Dark December

Sorry for the long gap in entries ... we are just feeling overwhelmed lately.

But it is good to be busy, and we are happy to be moving forward on many projects at once.

The shooting yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary reminds us that every moment is precious, and every day a gift. We hope that everyone is holding their loved ones a little closer.

Before the massacre in Connecticut, we celebrated Sara's birthday at Big Bend National Park. We visited Boquillas Canyon, near the border village of the same name (and the embattled border crossing -- will it ever open?).

Perhaps this brief serenade by Victor will lift your spirits:

Fall Behind

It's been an interesting past few weeks since the last blog entry.  Sorry for the long gap, there's just been so much going on here that writing got bumped to the bottom of the To-Do List.

The abundance of flowers continues, even though we haven't had any recent, significant rain.  The ocotillo left is one of the few we have spotted blooming, and since the photo was taken, almost all the ocotillo have changed to autumn colors or lost their leaves entirely.

We are still enjoying lots of fresh chicken from the harvest in August. Our two favorite ways to cook the birds are oven-roasted ("naked" roast chicken!) and tequila-lime marinated.

We have also started a container garden growing carrots, spinach, cabbage, cilantro, and basil. The community garden is also very active right now, with lots of edibles growing in the yard. We stopped by the Terlingua Farmers' Market last week and got to see all the wonderful vendors and farm-fresh food for sale.  It is still fairly early, though, and there will be even more vegetables available in a few weeks. We would love to have enough eggs to sell there (once the girls finally start laying!) and Casey's pater wants to buy drought-tolerant tree seedlings to re-sell.

We are really excited to see what we can harvest in two to three months! The growing season here in the desert is the opposite of what we are used to in the Northeast, and we have never done a container garden before. Containers have the benefit of reserving moisture better, but the disadvantage of being more sensitive to temperature fluctuations. We have already had some near-freezing temperatures this November, and we brought each container inside overnight to protect the seedlings from cold (only hope and prayer protects them from the cats & dogs!). Today seems to be the start of a warming trend, so we hope we can safely leave the containers outside overnight again! 

We also recently bought an annual pass for the Big Bend National Park (why did we wait this long?!) and have been attempting a new hike each week.  We completed the Grapevine Hills trail and the Lost Mine trail, just the two of us, and then this week we took Casey's parents Kathie and Bob (along with Gigabyte) down the Window trail and around the old Sam Nail Ranch. 

On the list for future hikes are the Ernst Tinaja, Santa Elena Canyon, and many more...

Another project that has been taking up a lot of time and effort is closing off the Workshop. As of tonight, the remainder of the back wall is all framed out and waiting for metal sheathing. We coated the wall with a special cement product called "Quikwall," which is a super-strong, fiberglass-reinforced surface bonding cement. The product is intended for dry stacked block walls with mostly hollow cores, but also has many other uses.  The Quikwall went on easily and finished nicely, with a smooth, stucco-y look. 

OK, it's not all-natural, traditional goat poo plaster ... but we don't have the goats yet and this was much easier and faster. 

Anyway, aside from these developments, there have been a lot of exciting things going on in the world.  For one, the Superstorm Sandy hit the Jersey Shore, where Sara's maternal family lives.  Everyone came through the storm OK, but there was a lot of damage and the electricity was out for several days.  Luckily, none of the many trees that fell landed on their homes or vehicles, but there was an obvious (and in some cases, desperate) need for portable solar systems. 

And Alpine threw a big, annual bash called ArtWalk, where people and artists came from all over to have a good time with food, friends, and art.  We made it just in time to catch the parade, which featured a multi-person rattlesnake skeleton cycle (with red-stocking tongue!) and spinning butterfly cycles. 

VIP

We had a VIP come to visit this week. Sara's mother Debra flew into El Paso on Tuesday and flew out on Saturday. Wednesday morning the desert welcomed Debra with a stunning orange sunrise.

Since we only had a couple of full days to show her around, we tried to pack in as much as we could. First stop had to be the Big Bend National Park. The national park was beautiful and almost every plant was blooming, thanks to recent and copious rain. But a lot of the roads we wanted to travel were closed due to washouts.

Despite that setback, we managed to see a number of great spots,including the Chisos basin, the Ross Maxwell scenic drive, Castolon, the Rio, and Santa Elena canyon. Debby got to take a photo of her first wild tarantula and discovered that she loves ocotillo plants, despite having trouble remembering the name.

The next day we gave her the two-dollar tour of Terlingua ghost-town, took a stroll through the graveyard, and tried to find something worth buying at the Terlingua Trading Company. Unfortunately, we were treated very rudely by the man behind the counter and did not buy anything.

Just a few miles down the road, we had a completely opposite experience at the Lajitas resort. The posh resort, which basically is its own town, sits right on the Rio Grande and boasts many amenities and luxuries for its guests. After checking out the wares at Christina's World, we were strolling down the boardwalk when an employee came out to greet us. We thought that he was going to ask us to take the dogs away, but instead he enthusiastically greeted the dogs first and suggested we take them over to the amphitheater where they could play off-leash.

He gave us a mini-tour of the resort while guiding us to the amphitheater  and told us we were welcome to eat at the restaurant with the dogs if we didn't mind sitting outside. With a veranda like this, who could mind?

But we had already planned to eat at the Starlight Theater, so when we were done exploring the resort we all piled back into the truck and had a very nice meal accompanied by live music.

All in all, I think we did OK as far as giving the whirlwind-tour. Let us know if we missed any of your favorites -- we'll add them to the list for next time.